Volkswagen: we are covered by our three gigafactories in Europe until 2028

WOLFSBURG (Reuters) -Volkswagen‘s battery needs are covered until 2028 by its three confirmed factories in Europe – the Salzgitter plant in Germany, Northvolt’s plant in Sweden and a planned plant in Valencia, board member Thomas Schmall said on Monday.

“With these three plants we are covered until 2028,” Schmall said at a press event at the Salzgitter plant, inaugurated last July.

The Valencia plant, confirmed last year, is due to begin production in 2026. Volkswagen said last week it was waiting to hear what Europes response to the U.S. Inflation Reduction Act will be before progressing with plans to build further battery plants in the region.

The carmaker was standardising the structure of its factories to make production more efficient, Schmall said, describing the process of building new plants as “copy-paste”.

While the structure of the battery cells would also be standardised, the chemistry of the battery would differ for different models, Schmall said: Batteries for entry-level models will use iron phosphate, while medium-level models will have high manganese content and top models increased silicon content.

With its PowerCo battery unit, Volkswagen wanted to become a significant player but not the only player in the battery space, Schmall added, highlighting that 95% of the battery market is dominated by Asian players like CATL and LG Chem.

(Reporting by Victoria WalderseeEditing by Miranda Murray)